A variety of products such as batteries, nuts and bolts, hooks and other such hardware products are packaged by encapsulating the products on cards whereby the familiar "blister" or "bubble" product cards are formed. Modern merchandising techniques feature these cards supported on dispensers mounted on perforated (peg) boards, slat walls or other like mounting surfaces. The dispensers are generally unattended for self-service merchandising. Problems exist in that under the above described circumstances, the product cards can be easily removed, either maliciously or inadvertently, from heretofore available dispensers. Various means have been employed to avoid this situation, such as illustrated in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,949 issued to Mark A. Niven on May 14, 1991.
A problem also exists in that the product cards can be easily removed from the dispenser in quantities, as may be attempted by pilferers or the like. Prior to the present invention, there has not been a satisfactory fixed quantity dispensing arrangement associated with product dispensers for product cards of the type described.
The product dispensers herein disclosed are configured to include a retaining element which is arranged with the product dispenser at a predetermined position on the dispenser so that the quantity of product cards that can be dispensed at one time is fixed. The configuration is such that unauthorized removal of a quantity of product cards from the dispensers, other than the fixed quantity (usually one), as by pilferers or the like is impeded. All in all, the present invention avoids the problems occasioned by prior art dispensers relating to pilferage and enhances self-serving merchandising of the products as is desireable.